Non-adiabatic dissociation of molecules and BEC loss due to shock-waves

Abstract

Recent experiments have shown the likely appearance of coherent BEC atom-molecule oscillations in the vicinity of a Feshbach resonance. In addition, a new loss mechanism was observed, whereby the loss of atoms from the BEC is inversely dependent on the rate of change of the applied magnetic field. We present here a phenomenological model which gives a good description of the scaling properties of this new decay process, by attributing it to non-adiabatic dissociation of molecules by a propagating shock-wave. The model has only two free parameters, which specify the size of the "shocked-region", and can be readily tested by future experiments.